tiredness is all about the mindset.
being tired can be fun sometimes. waking up on a saturday morning, feeling incapable of any lucid thought, slowly rolling out of bed, feeling the two shots of espresso slowly kick in, taking a long walk around campus in the morning sun to wake yourself up.
sometimes it can almost make you feel alive, the process of waking up.
[[sometimes]] though...sometimes you get //tired//.
the sort of tired sleep won't fix.
the sort of tired that probably happens when you're missing one or more [[vitamins]] essential for human functioning.sometimes you think you should just start picking up random vitamin bottles and seeing if they help.
what if all you're missing is just a little magnesium?
then you realize that whoever invented multivitamins was a rather smart fellow and solved this problem for you many decades ago.
[[mindset]] is a vitamin.
espresso shots might be a vitamin too.life is composed of good struggles and bad struggles. good struggles are the ones you enjoy, and bad ones are the ones you don't. which struggles do you enjoy? well, the good ones, of course.
getting tired is a struggle, and sometimes it's a bad one. like [[right now]]its 10:17pm. Saturday night. and casey, well, he is tired.
as such, it has been decided that you (casey) will go to bed early.
[[how early?]]a good question.
you want to be around to talk to people for a little while. weekend chats are often the highlights of the week, you wouldn't want to miss it just for a lack of vitamins.
people are still finishing their work, typing essays on their laptops in the corners of the room. they tell you they'll be done by 10:30.
very well then. asleep by [[11pm]] you shall be.11pm.
nobody's ever very punctual around here, and this was no exception. work stopped perhaps 10 minutes late, possibly more.
you're sitting down, slowly descending the gradient between the seated and sprawled across the floor.
you had told your friend that you were planning to go to bed by 11, and he he had told everyone else that you were about to leave, and everyone sort of looked at you with an expression indicating they didn't quite understand, and you couldn't actually be leaving or anything.
well, [[staying]] it is, then.as it turns out, we are.
there are three rounds to it. a first question, a second question, and a third question.
the second round is backwards. in the first and third, everyone answers your question about you. in the second, though, you ask it to someone, and only they answer.
[[it begins]].besides, you'd been told you're going to play a game. you like games.
couldn't quite go to sleep yet, now [[could you]]?of course not. not when theres a game to be played.
a good game is like all the good parts of a conversation without the bad parts. the good struggle without the bad struggle, perhaps.
a bad game doesn't have any of the good qualities of a conversation, but it doesn't have any of the bad parts either, so it's still a win, really.
[["are we going to play?"]]the first round is easy questions. what would he bring camping.? what does his phone wallpaper mean?
not for you though. the conversation gods smiled upon you, allowed you to drink from the font of reflection, to siphon knowledge from the minds of your peers.
you grab the dog bed from the other side of the room, curl up in it. [[very cozy]].really an essential piece of furniture, the dog bed.
comfortable. compact. versatile. well maybe not versatile, it's only really good for curling up on the floor. but what else do you need furniture for anyways?
everyone is going around in a circle talking about you. they're all being so nice. maybe [[too nice]]?
it's hard to pay attention because you're so tired, and the [[dog bed]] is so cozymaybe you should just close your eyes for a little, while you listen.
you'll still be paying attention after all, just with your [[eyes]] closed.there's a kind of nice you are to people that you aren't quite comfortable around, you think.
you aren't sure how much they act on their words either. more than anyone else, perhaps.
your [[eyes]] hurt.whenever you get really tired you can see the veins in your eyes.
should you leave? say you need to [[go to sleep]]? is that allowed? you haven't finished the game after all.
you've been sunk-cost-fallacied in, in a way. the easy questions are only there to get you in the mood for the hard ones, so leaving after the easy ones wouldn't really make much sense, [[now would it]]?sleep must always come first.
everyone acts a little sad and surprised, but they let you [[descend<-go]].yes, you must stay.
you sink further into the dog bed as you gather your [[resolve]].fin.down the stairs.
into the bed.
[[sleep]] time.fin.